Yes, we can delight in the most fabulous wild dates right here in Baja Arizona. We don’t have to put out lots of energy into finding these tasty little morsels because they are now all over the urban landscape. Once, in olden times, they were confined to oases, but now they line every old neighborhood street in low-desert towns. Harvest at the right time and enjoy their bounty.

Tia Marta here to continue our culinary explorations of native fan palm fruit. Our street sentinels are more than vertical shade. They bear other surprising gifts. Our so called California fan palms (“palma taco”) offer tiny sweet and plentiful fruits (the size of a plump pea), and were harvested and relished by Native People of the Sonoran and Mojave deserts long before Hispanics brought date palms (the pinnate-leafed palms) from the Old World.

Washingtonia robusta planted in a S.Tucson landscape

When ripe in summer into fall, zillions of fruits hang from pendulous stalks of Washingtonia filifera, with 20 pounds or more of the little buggers in one cluster—talk about prolific! As mentioned in my blog-sister’s post two weeks ago, Carolyn and I were challenged by renowned ethnobotanist Dr Richard Felger to try our hands at creating some “contemporary” recipes for this ancient and well-adapted desert food—which is now disregarded as nothing more than a columnar street planting. We know from ethnographic accounts (see them summarized in Wendy Hodgson’s Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, UA Press, 2001) that for the Native Cahuilla of Southern California, the fan palm meant survival—a staple in their diet, used both fresh or dried and ground, hard seeds and all, into a flour for cooking or griddling. Another ethnobiologist friend Dr. Amadeo Rea (1997) documented Pima children collecting fan palm fruits as snacks. Dr. Felger intends now to bring this native palm back into new, appropriate use as a sustainable desert food crop.

Washingtonia fruit is mostly seed, but the small amount of pulp has an impact in numbers (MABurgess photo)

Harvesting the high hanging fruit clusters proves challenging. Native harvesters used a lasso. More recently some harvesters fit a sharp can lid to the end of a pole to cut off the entire fruit stalk. A Tohono O’odham saguaro harvesting kuipaD might suffice—or a long-poled tree-trimmer—both worth a try.

In addition to their success as hot-desert food producers, both fan palms native to southwest North America, Washingtonia filifera (the stout, shorter one) and W.robusta (the super-tall, spindlier one), provide excellent nutrition. It has been estimated that one fan palm’s fruit could sustain one human’s nutritional needs for more than 200 days! Get a load of these figures from James W. Cornett (Principles Jour.Internat.PalmSociety,1987): Protein 3.1%, Carbs 77.7%, Fiber 10.4%, Calcium 110 mg per 100g, VitaminA(Carotenes) 180mg per 100g. Comparing these wild date nutritional figures with the commercial date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), our wild fan palm is way ahead on all counts except carbs (carbs 94.1% in standard dates).

Since the fruits of W.robusta (the tall one) are even tinier than W.filifera, I chose to do my foodie experiments with the latter one’s “bigger” datelets–both small. Fruits of both are mostly seed, a stony seed surrounded by a thin layer of sweet skin and dry, date-like pulp. Here are two fun ideas I’ve come up with for using fan palm fruits, which can be done easily in any kitchen or patio. These ideas also might present interesting potential for commercial-scale food production. (I hope our wonderful local companies like Cheri’s Desert Harvest are listening to the significance herein!) So, here’s my first idea–really in three delicious parts:

Wash thoroughly and drain 4 cups desert fan palm fruits. Place in a saucepan with 8 cups drinking water to cover fruit well. On stove-top, gently simmer the fruits for at least 30 minutes, (if using solar oven, make it 1 hour). Add more drinking water to keep fruits covered. Let cool and stand in refrig for 1-3 days. This process is bringing out the complex sugars into solution. Again, when you have a little time, bring back to simmer 15-20 minutes. Taste the liquid. It should be deliciously sweet with a rich, almost smokey bouquet—but still thin. With a sieve, decant the sweet liquid from the cooked fruits, saving the fruits aside.

After sieving out the simmered fruit, the liquid is being concentrated in a solar oven with oven cover slightly open to release moisture (MABurgess photo

[Here is where my experience reducing thin saguaro fruit juice kicked in. I knew that this thin, sweet liquid from the fan palm dates had to be cooked down slowly.]

Pour the juice into a solar-oven-worthy pan and put in preheated solar oven—without a lid on the pan. Let the glass cover of the oven be slightly open to allow steam/moisture to escape. Check after 15 minutes. If syrup is desired, check for correct syrup consistency. Keep heating until thickened to pourable syrup. Then, try this wonderful and healthful solar syrup over mesquite pancakes for the ultimate Southwestern breakfast!

With more time and further moisture reduction, there are more delicious options….. Here’s one: For the best, richest “Datil Molasses” you ever tasted, let the liquid cook down for another 45 minutes or an hour (depending on sun intensity). Be careful not to overcook, which might leave a sweet glue on the bottom of your pan. (The same reduction of liquid can be done of course on the stove-top or over a fire, like reducing maple sap, but hey, this is a desert product. We’ve got our fuel overhead! Let’s use it.)

“DULCES DE DATIL SYLVESTRE”

Carrying the process of concentrating the syrup yet another step further…If an even more chewy candy is desired, you might use the concentrated sweet molasses in a candy mold or for gelling like a fan-palm gummy bear.

It takes about 4-5 weeks to make this rich cordial liqueur, so plan ahead. With a fall harvest of wild dates you could start making your Desert Oasis Cordial by Thanksgiving and have it ready for Christmas-time celebrations. But don’t wait—when the fruits are ripe, go for it.

This is how I did it:

Wash, wash, wash and drain at least 2 cups of ripe native fan palm fruitlets (W.filifera), enough to pack firmly into a mason jar. Into the packed jar, pour vodka of your choice, filling all the space between the little fruits to the brim to cover them. (You could use tequila or EverClear for differing degrees of delight.) Screw on lid and place jar in a cool dark corner of your kitchen, where you can be reminded to agitate it. After a week, open it and add more vodka to cover fruits, as the fruit tissue will have absorbed some of the alcohol. Shake and turn over the closed jar every week. For the herbalists among us, you will recognize this process is basically tincturing the wild dates. After 4-5 weeks, decant (i.e. separate) the liquid from the fruit. The decanted liquid will be a rich dark chocolate brown color like Godiva liqueur only translucent. Taste it and serve sparingly in small cordial glasses. Store any remaining liqueur in a closed decanter for the next festive occasion.

W.filifera fruit AFTER tincturing and decanting makes a fabulous alcoholic treat (seeds to be discarded) (MABurgess)

Decanting the marinated fan palm fruits from the liqueur (MABurgess)

After both your Fan-Palm Syrup-making and your Desert Oasis Cordial-making, you will have delicious fruits left over in the straining or decanting process.

Both can be briefly quick-whirled or mashed in a blender, meat grinder, or CuisinArt to begin the process of separating the remaining pulp from the hard seeds.

After decanting the cordial, remaining fruit is whirled and put thru colander to separate pulp from seeds

[If someone has a good idea of how best to separate seeds from pulp easily, please share it!] Fruit leathers, energy bars, jams, “datil newtons”, spreads, supplements—there are SO many ways the remaining fruit pulp could be used, so that none of the nutrients and fiber need go to waste. Even the hard seeds could be parched and ground into a nutritious flour—as Native People did in earlier times, to their advantage.

“Desert Oasis Cordial” from wild fan palm fruits (MABurgess photo)

BTW, after snacking on Washingtonia fruitlets, be sure to check your smile in the mirror for black flecks of the yummy pulp between your incisors. I can see it now—the next fad question after “Got milk?” will be “Got datil?” That could make for a wild date experience. Enjoy!

For a taste of the native fan palm fruits, come by our Flor de Mayo booth at Sunday’s St Phillips farmers market, 9am-1pm. There we also have a demo of solar-oven cookery in action. The cleverly designed solar ovens are for sale from us with a discount and no shipping costs. We’d like to see every household in Baja Arizona equipped with a solar oven for emergencies as well as for sustainable living.

You can find the perfect makings for the pancakes to eat with your Solar FanPalm Syrup for that Southwestern breakfast–mesquite flour and heirloom White Sonora Wheat flour— at the Native Seeds/SEARCH store (3061 N Campbell, Tucson) and at Flor de Mayo’s booth at St Phillips farmers market. See you on Sunday! Have your taste-buds ready for a wild date.

Jacqueline Soule with you here to share some timely planting tips. Speaking as a gardener – one of the best things about living here in the Southwest is that every month is the month to plant something! Right now, in these cool months with short days and long nights, it is time to plant onions.

If you have never before had a vegetable garden, onions are a great way to start. Of all the garden vegetables, they are tolerant of abuse and forgiving of mistakes. In the ground, in large or small pots, under the shrubs in the front yard of your HOA home (the weed-police are mollified by “bulbs”), wherever you have a little space you can plant some onions. As long as we get rain every ten days, you may not even need to water them. Onions fresh out of the ground have so much more flavor you owe it to yourself to try them.

Onions can be tucked into almost any space in the yard. These I’itoi onions stay small.

Which ones? There are more varieties of onions than you can shake a stick at, a number of different types with conflicting names (bunching, bulbing, multiplier) and technically a few different species, but rather than start a discourse on all of that, lets just key into the fact that the days are short, thus you need to plant “short day” varieties.

Onion sets can be planted in pots with potting soil.

Now? In the coldest time of year? Yes! But you will plant “sets” not seeds. Sets are already started from seed onions, or, in the case of multiplier onions and garlics, they are divisions off a larger bulb.

How to plant sets? Just set them into the soil. (Sometimes gardening terminology makes sense.) Plant with the green side up, the bulb entirely below the soil.

Look in the background in this shot. Some varieties will grow faster than others.

Most of our local nurseries know that now is the time for onions and have a selection of sets to choose from. Big box stores don’t – just another reason to shop local. In past years some of the Farmer’s Market vendors also offered onion sets.

A general planting guide follows.

Light. Remember the whole “short day” thing? The short days of winter will mean that the onions will need as much as you can give them.

Soil is not as critical as with most vegetables. But for best overall health, plus full flavor and good final size of your crop, an improved garden soil is recommended. Or plain potting soil if you grow them in containers.

Water is needed on a regular basis for nice fat bulbs and succulent leaves. In general this means two or three times per week, but maybe more if the onions are in pots.

Fertilizer is not much needed by onions. If you want to, use one for root crops, high in nitrogen and potassium. Avoid fertilizer for flowers, like a rose or tomato food. Flowering takes energy away from creating succulent bulbs.

These onions got too much flowering fertilizer. Rather than develop good bulbs, they spent their energy producing flowers and seeds.

Harvest – once the tops die down and start to turn brown (usually in late May into June). For long term storage the garden books from “back east” tell you to dry your onions in the sun – but don’t do that here!! – they will get sun scald and taste yucky. Dry onions in a cool dark place that does have good air flow. I put mine on screens in the laundry room and leave the ceiling fan on low for about three days. Once they have dried onions will store without rotting.

Storage & Use. Some varieties of onions store better than others. Plan on about four months maximum for best flavor and texture. (Ours are eaten so fast this is not an issue.) Don’t forget to save your onion skins to make a great natural dye for Easter eggs and textiles.

I keep a bag to add my onion skins to every time I cook.

Onion skins produce a warm brown dye.

For more about onions and other vegetables and fruits that will thrive in your Southwestern garden, please consider my book Southwest Fruit and Vegetable Gardening (Cool Springs Press 2014), available at Antigone, Arizona Experience Store, local botanical gardens, state parks, and nurseries.

It’s Carolyn this week, taking you backstage to a food experiment. As we move into a hotter, drier climate here in the Southwest, we’ll have to consider agricultural products that can handle the changes. Although I’ve been playing with edible wild plants for decades and Tia Marta (Muffin Burgess) has put in similar years of work, it’s always exciting for us to find something new. We’re going to do a two-part investigation of what to do with a wild food new to both of us.

A big box of W. robusta palm fruit arrived at my house.

Last fall I received an email from noted ethnobotanist Dr.Richard Felger. He and a colleague, Dr. Don Hodel, an environmental horticulturist for the University of California Cooperative Extension, were working on some wild palm fruits, two species of Washingtonia, also called Mexican or California fan palm. He wondered if I could come up with some recipes. Back in the early 1970s when I was just beginning work with wild edibles, Dr. Felger took me on one of my first plant walks and over the years has answered many questions for me. I figured I owed him. I also asked Tia Marta if she wanted to join in the fun.

After a couple of days, FedX deposited a box with about 10 pounds of tiny hard black nodules on my doorstep – Washingtonia robusta fruit gathered from a park in Signal Hill, Calif. , near Long Beach. Not promising, they were little more than skin on seed with almost nonexistent flesh, nothing like their cousins the palm fruits we know as dates. Humans have a long history of using palm fruits – in fact some scholars think that the honey referenced in the Bible was actually date syrup.

Wendy Hodgson, THE expert on wild desert foods, says in her book Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, that the Washingtonia fruits were very important to the Cahuilla and Cocopa. She writes, “They made flour from the ground dried fruits and mixed it with other flours and water to form a mush.” We don’t eat much mush anymore (unless you consider oatmeal for breakfast), so I’d have to devise something else to do with them.

I took 4 cups of fruit and covered them with 8 cups of water. Brought it all it to a boil, then simmered uncovered for 30 minutes. I ran the softened fruit through a blender in batches and strained the liquid, ending up with 5 cups of almost black liquid that tasted something like prune juice.

Even flowers don’t make this liquid look appetizing.

. I simmered it until reduced to ¾ cup pulpy liquid then spread the remaining pulp and seeds on a cookie sheet and put it in sun to dry. Later, I sifted out ¼ cup dried flakes and discarded the hard seeds.

Pulp and seeds drying in the sun.

At this point I wrote Dr. Felger my scientific assessment: Sweet — but definitely not yummy. I pressed on and made some tasty muffins. Since there is interest in natural sweeteners, I concentrated on that aspect. Using a standard muffin recipe, I substituted the palm syrup for the liquid milk and reduced the sugar. I added the dried flakes just because I had them and to add some texture.

Muffins with palm syrup and dried flakes.

Fan Palm Muffins

Makes 1 dozen

1 ¾ cup unbleached white flour

¾ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sugar

¼ cup dry powdered milk

¼ cup dried Washingtonia flakes

2 eggs

¾ cup pulpy Washingtonia syrup

3 tablespoons melted butter

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, mix eggs, Washingtonia syrup and melted butter. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Do not overmix; some lumps are OK. Bake in greased muffin tins at 400 degrees F for about 15 minutes or until they appear done.

Washingtonia filifera fruit (about 1/4 inch) on left and W. robusta on the right.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hodel acquired some Washingtonia filifera fruit from a street tree near Indio, Calif., and sent another 10 pounds. Oh boy. They were still tiny, but bigger than the robusta. I put them through a similar process of simmering, blending, straining and reducing. The taste difference was subtle – more date-like than prune-like. Better.

I decided to use the filifera syrup in a healthy treat, showcasing its natural sweetness, and came up with these truffles. I used almond butter, but other nut butters will do.

Nutty truffles sweetened with palm syrup and rolled in cocoa.

Nutty Truffles

Makes 1 dozen

½ cup almond butter

½ cup popped amaranth grain

¼ cup ground popped amaranth

6 tablespoons Washingtonia filifera palm syrup

1/3 cup cocoa or carob powder

Combine all ingredients except cocoa in a bowl and blend with a spoon. Form into 12 small balls. Roll each in cocoa. (You can buy popped amanranth at Native Seeds SEARCH)

♥ ♦ ♥ ♦

What’s the point of trying to find a way to use the fan palm fruits? With climate change bringing hotter, drier summers to the Southwest, ethnobotanists like Dr. Felger and Dr. Hodel are looking for plants that can take those conditions and still produce food.

I don’t expect a rush of people heading out to gather bushel baskets of fan palm fruits. They’ll appeal to the more ardent wild food enthusiasts who, like me, want to taste every berry on every bush. But they may have uses in more industrialized food production. They are sweet and easy to harvest and process. Some entrepreneur may see opportunity there. After all, nobody I know makes their own agave syrup.

Aunt Linda here on this 2nd day of January, 2015. The snow has melted from our New Years snow fall here in Tucson. Yesterday we awoke to snow on the ground. The bee hives, poultry feed bins, and garden were all covered with the beauty of cold, wet, snow. Today’s recipe is less about the “what” of the food itself and more about the “how” of food. Like the attention we give it while making/preparing it. And the quality of that attention. Seriously, let’s play a bit while we prepare our food! I take the wrong things seriously and can “miss” important things, (like actually TASTING food), while my mind thinks about other more “important” things. What got me thinking about Apparent Opposites – like serious play – was cleaning out the poultry coops two mornings ago. I love cleaning coops. It is messy affair, yet rejuvenates me. Hens eat and and then poop. They shed feathers and grow back new ones. They die and new ones hatch. The coop is definitely a place where the yin and the yang of life comes together. And it is a place where the tin and yang of “doing” and “allowing” is required as well. Poop and old food scraps do not make their way to the compost on their own. That requires active raking and hauling it to the compost. After that, compost HAPPENS. We allow it time to do its magical transformation from “hot” compost that will burn a plants roots, into the “black gold” that garden plants love. Making tortillas requires the apparent opposites (but by now you get that they are not separate, but part of the same whole!) of “doing” and “allowing”, as well. If we were to make masa (dough) directly into tortillas, the consistency would not be right. Just as in bread making, the dough needs time to rest; and to transform. And in order for that transformation to happen, we must take our hands off it; let it do it’s own alchemy. With tortillas, we actively make the masa. We let it rest – then shape tortillas. With experience, we know when the perfect consistency is reached. Time and heat transform them. Uncooked tortilla being shaped (above) and then cooked (below). These are the big tortillas cowboys like on ranches. So back to you and perhaps some apparent opposites in your life. You may want to play with the yin/yang of “doing” and “allowing” of making tortillas. Or not. There are many fun tortillas available on the market these days, from organic yellow corn, to blue corn to wheat, spelt, rice. Whether you make they or buy them, I dare you to play. Why? Because with play we forget our serious selves, and we enjoy (and this do not miss!) our food. I also dare you to play so much that you make mistakes. We are mistake adverse in this culture. If you buys your tortillas, or if you are rewarming your home made ones, warm them over a flame – or in a pan (cast iron best) if you are flame adverse. Add butter, or olive oil, or coconut oil or and sprinkle with salt. Or use any oils you like and add honey – or even coconut butter for a sweet treat. I like to keep the flavors present but not overwhelming so I can still enjoy the taste of the tortilla itself – but there are no rules and experimentation is fun. Warmed Corn Tortilla with Butter and Honey!! There are few things as startling simple as this! I used refried beans to make this Yin/Yang tortilla – and added a fried egg as breakfast while writing to you.